“Obviously, we didn’t give them much of a contest tonight. They did a great job. The one inning did us in. Mark (Appel) has been so consistent for us for two years. He lost his command a little bit; hit a guy. We walked a couple of guys. They got a couple of hits. They backed those freebies up with some hits and did a good job. It got away from us. We couldn’t throw enough strikes and they hit the ball. We got a good ole’ fashioned whoopin’ tonight. They’re a great team, and we really didn’t give ourselves a chance to stay in the game with them. We had a chance early to get a couple of runs, but we couldn’t stop them. You can’t give a quality team like Florida State that many free bases and then let them swing the bats. They did a great job. They are very impressive – especially their left-hander (Brandon Leibrandt). I thought he did a good job. We had a chance to get to him a couple of times and he won a couple of big spots. He got a double play. (Austin) Wilson hit into a double play in the first inning. I thought he pitched very well, changed his speeds and pitched well.

On how giving up runs hurts a team’s offensive production:

“It does. At the same time, we took a strike later on when we got down six or seven. To their credit, they threw strikes. They didn’t give us any free base runners. In that situation it is pretty hard to hit your way back unless they give you something – make a couple of errors. What they did is they bunched that with a couple of hits after we gave them some freebies. We couldn’t do that. They didn’t let us do that. We didn’t play well, and Mark didn’t have a normal outing. A lot of that has to do with Florida State. They didn’t swing at some close pitches that were balls. They didn’t chase. They did a good job. The key thing is they got some hits when we gave them those base runners.”

Starting Pitcher Mark Appel

On why he had a sub-par outing:

“I don’t know. I just started throwing balls. I’m not someone to make excuses, I just didn’t get the job done. You are always going to have a few bad outings each year. You wish they aren’t during the Super Regionals. I think we are going to come out with some fire tomorrow and really get after them. It’s not over yet. They still have to win one more, and we know we can win these next two.”

On the atmosphere at Dick Howser Stadium:

“The Pac-12 atmospheres are a little different than the SEC’s or the ACC’s. It’s a great atmosphere – especially the Super Regional. The fans showed up today. It got very loud. I don’t think that had any effect on my performance today. Like I said, I just didn’t have it today. It was obviously a great atmosphere and a lot of fun to play in.”

On what his week has been like with the Major League Baseball Draft on Monday:

“It happened earlier on. I guess it isn’t different than anybody asking for an interview. Obviously, it was an exciting time – being with my family and friends. I don’t think it had any distraction on tonight. I prepared the same. Monday happened and then it was over and it was all Stanford, focusing on going out there and giving my team a chance to win. I didn’t have it. I didn’t do that tonight. I don’t think that this week has been as crazy as most people would think. I don’t think it has any distraction to my performance tonight.”

“The only thing you can predict about baseball is the unpredictability. I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined what happened tonight could happen but it is truly why our sport is what it is. We know that tomorrow it will be a different story. We know what Stanford can do. They have a tremendous program, great tradition and we are in no way thinking that we have accomplished anything except we are going to play a ballgame tomorrow and see what happens.

“That’s not minimizing anything the young men at this table accomplished tonight but in this sport you can’t dwell on what happened yesterday because you’re turning around and playing again, it’s just that tomorrow there’s a lot at stake.”

On the team’s success facing Appel

“There’s just a ball club in that clubhouse that loves to compete and Mark (Appel) is a great pitcher and we happened to have some things go our way against him tonight and took advantage of a couple mistakes. But our guys will compete no matter who is on the mound and Mark is certainly going to be an outstanding major league pitcher. Tonight just happened to be one of those nights that a lot went right for us.”

On the team’s confidence at the plate leading up to the seven-run, fourth inning

“Yeah we were getting real confident towards him. We were all getting up there and having great at bats…making him throw a lot of pitches, just really seeing the ball well and everybody felt real confident. We knew we were going to start something sometime soon. We wanted to get it started as soon as possible. We definitely felt something…we had that confidence going.”

“It’s a huge confidence booster…the offense has got your back. They have been there all year, especially against a great pitcher like Mark (Appel)…when you put up a seven-spot on anybody it’s huge for momentum. You just try to keep throwing up zeroes.”

“I don’t know what happened tonight. I don’t think I ever remember hitting two homeruns in my life in a game, ever. Not even little league days. I can’t really explain it. I guess I got pretty decent pitches and put good swings on them. I was definitely pretty surprised they both went over.”